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June 15, 2016

David Stickney was selected by the Daily Journal as one of its 2016 “Top Plaintiff Lawyers” in California for obtaining nearly “$2 billion in recoveries from Wall Street banks in subprime-related litigation.”

In its special supplement, the Daily Journal profiles Mr. Stickney, highlighting his strategies in litigating subprime cases against major Wall Street Banks, including Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co., and Morgan Stanley, in light of the significant and unprecedented challenges that arose in the wake of the financial crisis.

According to Mr. Stickney, “Today, we know about corruption in the housing market, the corners cut. But all we knew in 2008 was that our clients had suffered significant losses. The underlying facts did not come out at once.”

Among the challenges facing Mr. Stickney and his team was “proving claims involving tens of thousands of individual loans.” Strategically, BLB&G focused on proving its cases on the “platform” level by concentrating on the way these Wall Street banks were making money. In turn, a major breakthrough was achieved when courts were persuaded to “consider statistical sampling of loan data to demonstrate that a large percentage was defective.”

Ultimately, Mr. Stickney and his colleagues were successful due to their efforts in fully dissecting the complex securities business, developing evidence, conceiving the legal strategies to maximize recoveries, distilling and presenting intricate issues to the courts, and establishing new legal precedent by winning the first ever certification of this class of investor.

The profile also highlights his most recent achievement in the case against long-term care insurer Genworth Financial Inc. arising from allegations that it understated its insurance reserves, obtaining a $219 million class settlement. The settlement is considered the largest recovery ever obtained in a securities class action in Virginia. According to Mr. Stickney, “This is an excellent result. These issues can be technical and difficult to grasp, but everyone understands greed and recklessness.”